


you really nailed it right there, buddy!

by nerdiests



Series: Linked Universe Weekly Prompts [8]
Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nailed It! (TV) Fusion, Baking, Baking Show AU, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), also they have a kid now, there's warriors/thom but it's like Minor so i'm not gonna outright tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21535468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdiests/pseuds/nerdiests
Summary: Nailed It!Season 2, Episode 4Linkpocalypse:With a few more Links than normal running around the set, the two hero-centered challenges become quests of epic proportions. With cookies that look like the Hero of the Four Sword and a replica of the Hero of Time's wedding cake, these aspiring chefs have their hands full on this new adventure!
Series: Linked Universe Weekly Prompts [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1377445
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	you really nailed it right there, buddy!

**Author's Note:**

> alright, almost immediately after i posted that last fic (within the same month), i write one that's three thousand words longer and this isn't even supposed to be serious!! well!! guess this is going!! and it's also half a week late, it was supposed to be up by tuesday!! but what's done is done, and it's better quality than it would've been if it were rushed!! (and even if it didn't get finished in time for food week it's still going in my weekly prompts series, i do what i want)
> 
> thank you so much to silona for indulging me by listening to me ramble about this incessantly while i worked on this, i love you so much. and to all the people that got to see snippets of this, this is for you. you liked what i wrote, so yeehaw. enjoy it!

It’s dark for a few seconds, before the studio lights up. The camera turns on, and focuses in on a man wearing a dark green shirt with a blue scarf wrapped around his neck. There’s a glimpse of a tie under the scarf, but it’s not extremely visible. He grins as he gestures at the camera, and there’s a sigh from behind it. 

“Hello lovely viewers back at home and welcome back to Hyrule’s hit baking show, Nailed It! I’m your wonderful host, Link Ellanher, and today we’ll be going back in time to a period not too long ago, where heroics were common and-” Link’s introduction is cut off by another voice behind the camera.

“Stop it with your theatrics, Warriors, and get on with it!” Link - Warriors - sighs, and looks pointedly at the camera. As he does, a banner goes across the bottom of the screen, reading, “Link Ellanher (Warriors), Master of Prose.”

“And that was snarky comment number one from the peanut gallery. Alright Legend, let’s get on with it, then!” Warriors says. The camera turns towards a fully-stocked kitchen with three separate workstations as Warriors continues to speak. 

“With today’s episode, we’ll be taking a look at the heroes of old - or not so old, in this case - and our three contestants for today will be attempting to recreate some delicious treats inspired by some of the heroes of the recent past for the opportunity to win ten  _ thousand _ rupees! Now, shall we introduce our contestants?” Warriors asks, perfectly timed. The doors swing open and there’s a cloud of smoke. Three people walk out into the room, but as all three of them start to walk in the middle figure starts coughing. The one on the left stops and turns towards the middle figure. 

“Hyrule, are you alright?” the left figure asks. The middle figure - Hyrule - coughs a few more times as the figure on the right turns back around.

“You need a hand?” they ask, and Hyrule shakes their head as they stand back up. Their brown hair flies around a bit as they walk forward.

“No, I’m. I’m good. Just wasn’t expecting that,” Hyrule says, before looking at the camera directly.

“Legend you should’ve  _ told _ me there was smoke, you know I take deep breaths to calm my nerves!” Hyrule says, and there’s a quiet mumbling sound from behind the camera. Offscreen, Warriors laughs as the three contestants stand in a row. The camera cuts over to Warriors from where the three contestants stand. 

“Oh contestants of ours, shall you introduce yourselves?” Warriors asks. The camera cuts back over to the three of them. It’s quiet. There’s a cough from behind the camera. Then the figure on the right steps up with a sigh. 

“I’m Link Lon Lon Junior, and if you call me that I will scream. Call me Twilight. I’m only on this show because you asked me to be Warriors, you know that,” Link - sorry, Twilight - says, and the camera moves back over to Warriors, who’s cackling. 

“I know, I just wanted to hear you have to say your legal name that you  _ never _ go by,” Warriors grins. The camera pans back to Twilight as a banner unfurls underneath him onscreen, reading, “Link Lon Lon Jr (Twilight), Tired of Warriors’ B.S.” For a moment, Twilight locks eyes with the camera, before it bobs once in solidarity. The camera pans over to the next person in line, Hyrule.

“Hi, I’m Link Hyrule, and I think I can nail whatever challenges you’ve got today! You can call me Hyrule, that’s what everyone calls me!” Hyrule says, and if anyone could be the personification of the :D emoticon, that was Hyrule in that moment. A banner unfurls under Hyrule onscreen, reading, “Link Hyrule (Hyrule), Trying His Best!” There’s a chuckle from behind the camera as it pans over to the last contestant in line. 

“Hello! I’m Link Crimson, but you can call me Sky. Warriors asked me to come on the show, but I love baking too, so I think we’re all going to have a great time,” Sky says, giving the camera a smile. The same banner unfurls under Sky as it did under the others, reading, “Link Crimson (Sky), Here To Have A Good Time.” The camera switches view over to Warriors, who’s looking over to his left and tapping his foot. 

“He’s taking too long…” Warriors mutters, before cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling. 

“WILD GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE!” he yells, and a blue streak dashes into the room. A hat falls from their head as the blue streak solidifies into a person as they vault over a table and come to a skidding stop next to Warriors, not even breathing hard. 

“Sorry ‘bout that Warriors, I got distracted. Muffin?” the blue-clad person offers. Their polo is covered in powdered sugar and flour, their long blond hair is in a messy bun and they’re not wearing an apron, but the muffin they hold is immaculate. Warriors sighs, before taking the muffin. 

“As all you viewers back home will know, this is the renowned chef and baker, Link Farore, or Wild. Who’s also renowned for his tardiness,” Warriors says, turning towards Wild and putting one hand on his hip. Wild only shrugs, pulling a second muffin out from somewhere and munching on it. Twilight raises an eyebrow as a banner unfurls under Wild onscreen, reading, “Link Farore (Wild), A Literal Child.” As Wild continues to munch on his muffin and the three contestants look at Warriors for a few seconds, it’s quiet. Then Warriors blinks a few times, before his eyes widen. 

“Oh my goodness I almost forgot our wonderful guest judge for this episode. Might I introduce the head baker and owner of one of Hyrule’s most well-known bakeries,  _ Heroic Baked Goods,  _ Thom Ellanher?” Warriors says as the camera pans over to a set of doors. Everyone on set pauses when no one walks out from behind them. There’s no smoke, no silhouette, nothing. Warriors’ brow furrows, before he seems to come to a realization. He mouths something to himself, before looking back at the camera. 

“But that last name sounds… Very familiar to you viewers, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it’s my last name. May I  _ actually _ introduce the wonderful Thom Ellanher, my wonderful husband?” Warriors says, and this time someone comes walking out when the doors open - though they look to be walking rather fast. The tall man with long reddish-brown hair bends down slightly to give Warriors a kiss on the cheek as he walks up. 

“I’m sorry about that pumpkin, I got a call from Annamarie about something that I needed to take. I thought you were introducing me as not your husband?” Thom asks. Warriors sighs to himself. 

“I was going to, but you missed your cue, hon.” Thom blinks, before smacking his face with his palm. As he does this, the banner that’s unfurled under everyone makes its appearance, reading, “Thom Ellanher, Handsome but Oblivious.” For a moment, the studio’s quiet. 

“You’re  _ married? _ ” Wild asks, looking over at Warriors and Thom confusedly. Warriors raises an eyebrow, holding out a hand with a ring on it, nudging Thom as he does. The other man holds out a hand with a matching gold band on it and Wild blinks. 

“Huh. Did not expect that,” Wild says, and Warriors’ eyebrow raises further. 

“What do you mean by that, hmm?” Warriors asks accusingly, and Wild puts up his hands. There’s snickering off camera, and a significant pause. 

“Well! Shall we get back on topic? The show will go on and all that jazz?” Warriors asks, quirking an eyebrow. There’s a hum of affirmation as the snickering dies out, and the camera angle changes. 

“Today, the three of you will be attempting two challenges,” Warriors says, directing both the attention of everyone in the room and the camera itself towards a door to the left of the judge’s table. It’s labeled with a bright blue “1.” Cutting back to the judges for a moment, Warriors grins. 

“With the first of these, the winner will be getting an extra prize! Baker’s Choice!” There’s excitement in the air, and Thom is smiling while Warriors grins. Wild just looks like a maniac, but that’s normal. 

“Behind this first door here, we have not three but  _ four _ treats inspired by the Hero of the Four Sword himself! May I present… Four Sword sugar cookies!” The door opens with a puff of smoke, and the camera focuses in on four immaculate sugar cookies. They all look fairly similar, with each having the same face but in different colors - either green, blue, red, or violet. 

“I thought you normally had three treats to choose from?” Twilight asks from where he stands, raising an eyebrow at Warriors. Warriors shrugs. 

“This is about the Four Sword, I couldn’t  _ not _ have four cookies made. And the forgotten cookie will be remembered,” Warriors replies as he turns towards the contestants.

“Well? What’re you waiting for, go pick your cookie!” Warriors says, waving his hands. Hyrule jumps into action half a second before the other two, and races up to grab the cookie he’d been eyeing the entire time. With Hyrule’s abrupt movement, both Sky and Twilight are spurred into action, and race their way over as well. After a few nudges, there is one cookie left and Twilight, Hyrule and Sky are standing back where they were before their mad rush began. Each one of them holds a cookie. Twilight’s is red, Hyrule’s is green, and Sky’s is blue. Warriors gives a sad glance over at the violet cookie sitting alone. The camera focuses in on it for a second. Sad music plays for all of two seconds, before the camera moves over to the three contestants again.

“Alright, you’ve made your choices. One hour’s on the clock… Go! Go, go go!” Warriors says, moving his hands in a shooing motion as a timer appears at the bottom of the screen. Yet again, Hyrule takes off like a shot towards the middle baking station, while Twilight and Sky move at a more leisurely pace while still staying about as fast as they can reliably go. With those three starting on their cookies, the trio of judges makes their way up to the table. 

“I still can’t believe you’re  _ married _ ,” Wild says, and Warriors laughs. 

“I don’t talk about it a lot, yeah, but you really didn’t notice the ring?” Warriors asks as he pulls his phone from one of his pockets. Tapping a few times on the screen, he brings the phone up to his ear. Almost immediately after he does that, he starts talking. The person he was calling must have picked up quickly.

“Hey Four! ...Yeah, I’m filming today, I actually wanted to invite you down. Why? ...I don’t have an ulterior motive, no… There’s a cookie in it for you? Alright, see you in fifteen!” Warriors takes his phone and taps the screen again, sliding it back into a pocket. Wild raises an eyebrow curiously. 

“What was that about?” he asks, and Warriors only grins.

“You’ll see.”

While the judges talked, the contestants immediately got to work. The camera focuses on Twilight as he takes a few seconds to scan over the recipe before going and grabbing what he’d need, setting it out in a bit of a disarray. He glowers at the mixer that he pulls out, before starting to sort his ingredients. The camera moves over to Hyrule, who’s already putting things into the bowl of the stand mixer as he makes a face at something. Sky, meanwhile, is meticulously checking and double checking the ingredients he has, so he can make sure everything that he needs is there.

“Sky’s being particularly thorough,” Wild comments. Warriors and Thom both nod as Sky starts separating his ingredients into different categories. 

“Twilight is as well, even if I do know he doesn’t care for baking much,” Warriors adds, and Twilight makes a vulgar gesture over his shoulder as he reaches up to grab something from a cabinet. 

“Rude much!” Warriors gasps, right as there’s a loud whirring noise and a puff of flour. 

“Did… Did Hyrule put his stand mixer on the highest setting?” Thom asks. The camera angle changes, showing Hyrule covered in flour. He shakes his head, and little bits of flour fly everywhere.

“Yep! Regretting it!” Hyrule chimes from his workstation, brushing bits of flour out of his hair. The camera shakes a bit, almost in a disapproving manner. As the competitors start in on the monotonous bits of cooking, the camera pops back over to the judges as Warriors leans on the table, the violet cookie sitting next to him, waiting for something. 

“So! Wild, Thom! How would you go about this interesting process?” Warriors asks, looking between the two of them. Wild gives Thom a gesture, and Thom sighs, before he starts to explain. 

“Well, these cookies won’t have cookie cutters, that’s for sure. You’re going to want to cut out the exact shapes of the cookies after you make the dough, since you’ll need to be precise with certain aspects. Especially those fingers on the green and blue cookies, and the pom-poms on the red one. After you get them baked, you’ll decorate with royal icing, outlining the bigger areas and filling them in, and adding the details afterwards on top,” Thom explains. Warriors nods to himself and leans against Thom a bit. 

“You could say it’s one  _ tough cookie _ ,” Warriors says, and there’s a groan from across the room. 

“Your puns are the  _ worst _ , Warriors,” Twilight groans, and the camera shakes a bit as Twilight visibly goes through the five stages of choosing to not slam his head onto the table. 

“ _ I know, _ ” Warriors replies, a shit-eating grin on his face. There’s a laugh from Sky’s part of the kitchen as he moves about his workstation. He hums to himself, and even if it sounds a bit out of tune it doesn’t sound all that bad. The camera focuses in on him as he moves to grab a rolling pin so he can roll out his cookie dough. The humming only get louder as he gets to work. As the camera pans over to Twilight and Hyrule, they’re both doing the same thing. Though Hyrule looks to be having a bit more trouble with rolling out his dough.

“It’s… It’s sticking to the rolling pin,” Hyrule mutters as the camera focuses in on the rolling pin Hyrule holds. Thom raises a single eyebrow from where he sits at the judges’ table as the camera pans over. Wow, the camera’s been moving a lot, do they not have multiple cameras? Or is there just one overtly enthusiastic camera man? As if to prove this point wrong, the camera angle changes, focusing back in on Hyrule. If one pays attention, they can see an angry blond man standing behind another camera. 

“What did I do wrong?” Hyrule asks, looking up at the ceiling. Meanwhile, the blond man fumes and walks up to the judges’ table, crossing his arms. A different camera focuses in on them. 

“I’m the cameraman, let me work the cameras,” he says. Warriors raises an eyebrow. As the cameraman fumes, a banner unfurls just like for the others, reading, “Link Hyrule (Legend), The Personification of Salt.”

“You’ve been using one camera. We have more than just the one, Legend,” Warriors says. The cameraman - Legend - huffs and walks off, right as there’s a noise of triumph from Hyrule.

“I figured it out! I didn’t flour the rolling pin!” Thom sighs again. 

“Why did I agree to do this?” Thom asks quietly. Warriors leans into his side again, looking up at him.

“Because you love me and I asked nicely?” Warriors asks in reply. Thom glances down for a second, before sighing again and giving Warriors a kiss on the forehead. 

“That is the exact reason,” Thom replies. The camera changes to Twilight, who’s rolling his eyes but has a face like he’s used to their antics. 

“Been friends with Warriors since college. Helped him get together with Thom, did  _ not _ expect them to be this lovey-dovey,” Twilight mutters as he grabs an exacto-knife and studies the cookie he’s supposed to be cutting out closely. 

“These pom-poms are gonna be the death of me,” he mutters. The camera changes again, focusing on Sky as he slides a cookie sheet with four cookies on it into the oven. They don’t really  _ look _ like what they’re supposed to, but Sky tried his best, and that’s the spirit of the show. Hyrule grimaces from his station.

“Oh, oh no, he’s getting his cookies in the oven and I still haven’t…” Hyrule looks down at his dough and the camera zooms in. It looks a bit… Patchy? Hyrule frowns, before picking off a few pieces of dough from the rolling pin and pressing them back onto the dough. He smacks the dough with his hands a few times, before moving to cut out his little waving man. 

“Well, Sky’s ahead of the game,” Wild says as a different camera focuses in on the judges. Warriors is still snug against Thom’s side, but they’re all looking at the contestants. A camera behind the judges focuses in on the contestants, keeping the judges in frame. 

“Pays to keep organized,” Warriors comments, giving Wild a look. Wild puts his hands up.

“My kitchen’s organized!” Wild protests, and Warriors laughs.

“I’ve seen your kitchen. If it’s organized anything, it’s organized chaos. You’re the only one that can get around in that mess,” Warriors says. Wild pouts as the camera changes and it shows in quick sequence both Twilight and Hyrule putting their cookies into their respective ovens. Twilight’s have a semblance of what they’re supposed to, but Hyrule’s… Look like lumps. The time flashes across the bottom of the screen, reading 48:47, and Hyrule hums happily to himself as he walks away from the oven. 

“Cookies in the oven, got the cookies in the oven. Let’s make some  _ icing _ ,” he half-sings, moving around the workstation to try and find the royal icing mix. As Hyrule does that, Twilight does the same and Sky works on making his own. While they start on their cookies, a door opens and a short man with a headband walks in, wearing a slight disarray of colors but he still manages to pull it off. 

“Four! You made it!” Warriors calls as the man, Four, walks up to the judges’ table. As with everyone beforehand, a banner unfurls under him onscreen, reading, “Link Minshi (Four), Just Here For The Cookies.” Four raises an eyebrow at him as Warriors looks around. 

“Legend, can you get a chair?” Warriors asks into the room. There’s a flash of red in one of the corners and a loud groan. Four pauses, glancing at the door nervously. 

“Might want to make that…” Four trails off as a blue blur runs into the room and at Warriors. 

“Warriors!!! School let out early today so I called Four to come pick me up!!!” Warriors jumps up as the blue blur solidifies into a bundle of teenager. Warriors leans back a bit to lessen the impact and sets the teen down on his feet. As the teen bounces on the balls of his feet, yet another banner unfurls on-screen, reading, “Link Outset (Wind), A Baby That Should Not Be Here, Stay In School Kids.”

“Wind what do you  _ mean _ school let out early? Today’s not a holiday or anything, right?” Warriors asks, turning to Thom for confirmation. Thom nods as Wind starts talking.

“Oh, there was just an issue in one of the chemistry labs, so they had to get the school cleared out. I think it might’ve been Four’s cousin, but I don’t know,” Wind shrugs, and Warriors turns to Four with a raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t know much about that, all I know is that Wind asked me to pick him up since he said both you and Thom were busy,” Four says, and Warriors narrows his eyebrows before sitting up straight.

“Can you get another chair, Legend? My brother’s here too, apparently,” Warriors calls. There’s a louder groan from somewhere, and Twilight looks up from the icing he’s making.

“Oh, hey Wind. What’s up?” Twilight asks. Wind grins and starts to go on the spiel that he’d just given Warriors. The camera focuses in on Warriors and Four, though.

“Well, I asked if you’d want to come in ‘cause I had these wonderful contestants making cookies of Green, Red, Blue, and Vio,” Warriors says. Four pauses, taking a look over the kitchen. When he takes a closer look, he spies the cookies that’re sitting out by each workstation. Four raises an eyebrow. 

“Did you want me here for accuracy, or?” Four asks, and Warriors laughs and shakes his head a few times. 

“Oh, no. Vio the cookie didn’t get picked, do you want to eat it?” Warriors asks. Four seems to think for a moment, before shrugging. 

“It’ll be odd eating a cookie with my own face on it, but I suppose,” Four says, right as Legend lugs up two chairs and sets them down. He glares at Warriors for a few moments, before stalking off. 

“Alright, pick a spot and put your chair there,” Warriors says. As the two new arrivals get adjusted, the camera angle switches back to the contestants. Sky’s glancing down at his icing, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“This looks a bit too thin… But I’ll run with it,” Sky says, shrugging. Hyrule laughs from his station, holding up a spoon covered with a thick clump of royal icing. 

“Think mine’s too thick!” Hyrule says with a laugh, moving back down to work on his frosting. Twilight sighs from where he’s working. His icing looks fine, but he isn’t the most confident in his cookie shape. With a deep breath, he moves to sort out the different colors he’ll need. From what he can tell… There’s nine colors. He’s going to need a lot of red. 

“I’m not going to need  _ that _ much green,” Hyrule says quietly from his workstation, looking over the cookie he’s supposed to be making. Twilight actively makes a face as Hyrule says that. 

“Did… Did he just say he wouldn’t need that much green for the  _ Green cookie _ ?” Four asks worriedly from the judges’ table. Wild just puts up a hand. 

“This happens. Don’t say anything, Four,” Wild says. Four opens his mouth to speak, but thinks the better of it and takes a bite of his cookie. 

Time flies by while Sky, Hyrule, and Twilight make their icing. Wind tells Warriors about his day as the clock ticks down. A timer goes off somewhere, and Sky runs over to take his cookies out of the oven. Hyrule starts to fret over his icing as Sky pulls his cookies from the oven. Twilight glances over at the oven and nods to himself. A timer flashes along the bottom of the screen as Twilight’s cookies - which sort of look like what they’re supposed to - come out of the oven. 21 minutes and 39 seconds left. Warriors opens his mouth to say something when his phone rings. 

“I swear…” Warriors mutters, reaching for it. He raises an eyebrow at the caller ID, picking it up. 

“Hi sweetpea, what’s up?” Warriors asks. Wild looks over at Four and raises an eyebrow. Four shrugs. Thom tilts his head, before his face brightens. 

“...What? You need me to… I’m on set, sweetpea,” Warriors says, sounding a bit defeated. Then he perks up. 

“Wait, you know what? My show, my rules. Bring ‘em over,” Warriors continues. There’s a loud noise from the phone, and Warriors smiles softly. 

“Let them know I’ll see them in twenty. Love you, sweetpea,” Warriors says, before hanging up the phone.

“What was that about, pumpkin?” Thom asks. Wild opens his mouth to add on to that, when Warriors interrupts him, a huge grin on his face. 

“Annamarie’s bringing Amity by,” Warriors says. Thom pauses to process for a moment, before grinning gleefully. 

“Oh, they’ll love this,” Thom says. The camera pans over to Hyrule as Wild and Four start to ask Thom and Warriors what they mean. He’s staring at the oven, as if watching the cookies bake will make them bake faster. From his station, Sky glances over curiously.

“He’s… Does he not know that they should be done by now?” Sky asks quietly. Hyrule gives the cookies another glance, before gasping. 

“They’re  _ done! _ ” he says triumphantly, opening up the oven and taking the tray with the cookies on it out with the oven mitts he has on. He takes the tray over and sets it down on the counter, nearly knocking over a bowl in the process. 

“Be careful man!” Twilight calls from his station, and Hyrule grimaces a bit.

“I didn’t mean to knock into anything, whoops!” Hyrule says, reaching over to grab a spatula to take the cookies off the tray. His cookies look… A bit browner than they should be and nothing like they should, but he’s putting his all into this. That should count for something, right? 

“Time to decorate,” Sky says, tapping one of the cookies with his finger. It’s not hot to the touch, so it’s perfect to ice. Nice. Hehe, n _ ice _ . He laughs a bit as he picks up his black icing and starts to outline the basic shape of his cookie. Twilight, meanwhile, gives all of his cookies a critical glance. 

“I know I should probably outline these first, but. Would icing the big red bits be better?” Twilight muses to himself. Thom blanches from the judges’ table as Twilight nods to himself and picks up the first of the reds. 

“Is… Is he not outlining the shape that he needs to fill in??” Wild asks, confused. Warriors looks over at Twilight, who locks eyes with him and winks. 

“That shithead! He’s doing it on purpose!” Warriors says angrily, narrowing his eyes. Twilight only winks again and goes back to icing his cookie. 

Hyrule, meanwhile, has also started icing his cookie. But it’s clear from the look of distress on his face that he did  _ not _ think this through. 

“ _ I’m out of green! _ ” he mutters to himself, looking at all the other colors he has. There’s still some white left, right? Yes. But there’s not… Fuck it. Hyrule takes half of the white and dumps it into the green icing bag, hoping that the colors will work out right. 

“Alright, there’s seven minutes left on the clock everyone! Let’s get those cookies decorated!” Warriors says. Hyrule balks, and Sky looks down at his cookies. He’s only just finished the basic outlines, he… Might need to hurry a bit more. Twilight, meanwhile, grabs an inverted spatula and starts spreading the royal icing on his cookie. Warriors grimaces as Twilight locks eyes with him and grins. Goddesses. Why this. 

“This isn’t what I wanted today, goodness,” Warriors mumbles, leaning into Thom’s side more. Thom doesn’t say anything, he just stares at the atrocities against baking that both Twilight and Hyrule are committing. 

“We just need for Amity to get here, pumpkin. Everything will be  _ fine _ ,” Thom replies, and Warriors hums. The camera switches over to look at Hyrule, who’s grown worried again. The icing did… Not do what he’d hoped. 

“Aw beans,” Hyrule mutters, continuing to ice the cookie because what else can he do? Leave it un… Wait. This could work for him. He could get like. Those green sour candies and put those on top of the icing that could work? With a nod, Hyrule finishes putting the white icing on rapidly and runs off to the pantry. The camera follows him as he tears across the room, looking through the candies until he finds the green sour strips he was searching for. With a triumphant cry, he makes his way back to his cookie and starts layering the green strips over where they should go - the white parts of the icing. 

“What is he… Is he using sour candies?” Four asks, sounding concerned. Wild nods, giving them a critical eye.

“It could turn out okay, but I’m not thinking it will. Sour won’t pair well with the cookie or the icing,” Wild says. Thom nods as Warriors gives another glance at the clock and sighs loudly. 

“Oh thank the goddesses there’s only two minutes left! Finish icing your cookies you heathens!” Warriors says. There’s a swear from Twilight’s general direction, while Sky smiles down at his cookies. They don’t look  _ good _ , but they look sort of what they’re supposed to look like! All he needs to do is add the final details and everything will be stellar. Hyrule’s also confident in his cookies because he did, in fact, have enough icing for the other colors. It was just a grievous oversight on his part to not make enough green. 

“I’m not a heathen!” Hyrule calls back, fiddling with the sour candies so they can make a semblance of the hair on the cookie. 

“You’re committing baking crimes, Hyrule,” Legend’s voice comes out of nowhere, and Hyrule whirls around. Legend stands in the doorway to the pantry, and Hyrule stares at him for a few seconds.

“You burnt cookies one time Legend. They caught on fire,” Hyrule replies evenly, and Warriors’ eyebrows raise into his hair. 

“I am  _ so _ glad you’re not baking, Legend,” Wild comments, and Legend glares at Wild for a few seconds, before flipping him off and walking off into the void where cameras don’t reside. Wild blinked for a few seconds, before turning back to the other judges.

“Well, that happened,” he says. Hyrule, meanwhile, looks into the nearest camera like he’s on the Office. Warriors laughs, before looking at the clock again. Well, that’s bad news for the contestants here! At least they’re all almost done!

“Five seconds! Four, three, two and one  _ put it down you’re done! _ ” Warriors yells. Hyrule drops his icing bag in a hurry, while Sky calmly sets his stuff down. Twilight stares at the cookies, giving his horrible icing job a once-over. Then he sighs. 

“Alright, come and bring us judges your tasty treats!” Warriors says, Before any of them can start moving to the center of the room, there’s a gasp from across the room. The camera pans over to a very small child, who immediately starts running across the room.

“Papa!” the small child yells, grinning and jumping into Warriors’ arms. Warriors spins them around, a grin on his face. 

“You have a  _ kid _ ?” Wild asks, incredulous. 

“Yeah! My name’s Amity!” the kid in Warriors’ arms says. Another banner unfurls onscreen, this one reading, “Amity Ellanher, A Literal Six-Year-Old.” Wild blinks, and Amity wriggles a bit in Warriors’ hold before spotting Twilight. 

“Oh!!! Uncle Dog Man!!!” Amity says happily, and Twilight smiles at Amity. 

“Did you bring any of your dogs with you Uncle Dog Man?” Amity asks curiously. Twilight laughs, before shaking his head. 

“No, I couldn’t bring any of the boys with me today, they’d try to get into the food,” Twilight replies. Amity starts to pout, but Thom taps Warriors on the shoulder and gestures for him to pass Amity over. 

“Daddy!!” Amity cries, reaching their arms out towards Thom as he takes them from his husband’s arms. 

“Hi there, my little hero,” Thom says, and Amity grins. One of their front teeth is missing, but it’s all the more endearing. 

“Alright well. We need to judge these cookies. Amity, honey, I don’t think you’ll want these,” Warriors says. Amity shakes their head. 

“No! I want a cookie! Can I have some?” Amity asks. Warriors pauses. Hyrule, for his part, immediately whirls around and plucks up his cookie that he’d been using as a model. 

“They can have this one? It won’t be as bad as mine are going to be,” Hyrule says. Amity pauses for a few seconds, before shaking their head. 

“No! I want one of your cookies! I love you and I want one of your cookies!” Amity says, smacking their little hands into Thom’s arm. Warriors pauses. Thom also pauses. Actually, everyone pauses. 

“I… I suppose?” Warriors eventually says. Amity throws their hands into the air, nearly smacking Thom in the face. There’s a big grin on their face as the group of four walks over to Twilight with his cookies. 

“Alright Twilight. You were trying to recreate this cookie here, let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Twilight, without any fanfare, takes the glass covering off the cookies. 

“Nailed it,” he says in a deadpan. Thom immediately grimaces, despite hoping he wouldn’t. Wild, on the other hand, busts out laughing. The cookies have seen better days. Red is oozing everywhere, and there’s barely a defined face. The pom-poms are the only thing that actually look vaguely like pom-poms. 

“I’m… I don’t have words for this..!” Wild wheezes, and Twilight just rolls his eyes. Warriors gives it a level look, while Thom schools his face to not look like he just saw someone deliberately stepping on a cat. 

“So… You took the unstructured approach?” Thom asks. Twilight shrugs. 

“Man, I just wanted to see if I needed to outline my cookies. Turns out I did,” Twilight says. Thom pauses again, while Amity reaches for one of the cookies. 

“I want one! Uncle Dog Man made one, I want one!” Amity says excitedly. Twilight laughs a bit, as Wild recovers from his laughing fit. 

“Well. Let’s try it, shall we?” Warriors asks. Twilight nods, and all three of the judges convene on the plate like hungry… Judges. For lack of a better word. Warriors breaks off one of the pom-poms and takes a bite. His eyes widen as he chews, and he gives Twilight a look as the other judges go and eat. 

“That was really good, Twi, where in the world have you been _ hiding _ that baking ability? Jeez!” Warriors chides playfully. Twilight laughs as Wild raises an eyebrow and Thom nods to himself. Amity makes another grabby-hands motion, and Thom breaks the other pom-pom off for them. They grin while they eat the piece of cookie. 

“Yummy!! Uncle Dog Man can you make me cookies sometime??” Amity asks. Twilight’s laughs grow louder, but he nods through them. 

“That cookie was surprisingly good. Not too tough and dry. The icing was a bit… Too sugary for my tastes, but I can’t point out too much wrong with it other than how it looked,” Thom says. Wild nods, motioning his head towards Thom. 

“Yeah, I definitely agree. Really enjoyed it, but it could’ve been better,” Wild adds. Warriors shrugs. 

“Already said my piece man. Alright… Next!” Warriors says, and the quartet moves down the line to Hyrule. Hyrule bounces from foot to foot anxiously, and as the judges stop he attempts to stop moving but his hands start moving instead. Ah, anxiety. Hate it. 

“Alright, Hyrule! Here’s the cookie you were trying to make, let’s see what you did!” As Hyrule attempts to stop his fidgeting, he grabs the glass cover and pulls it off, his hand shaking a bit. 

“Nailed it!” he says, voice wavering a bit. There’s a pause in the room, before Wild takes a step forward and gives the cookie a critical eye. It doesn’t really look like it should, there’s not enough green, and… What is that? On the icing for the hair?

“Is that… Sour candy on the icing?” Wild asks slowly. Hyrule nods, shaking a bit. Before he can speak, Amity smacks Thom’s arm.

“Let me down! I want to give Mr. Hyrule a hug!” Amity says. Hyrule smiles shakily as Thom sets Amity down. Amity immediately runs for Hyrule and takes his hand before hugging his legs.

“You’ll be okay! I’ll stand here with you, okay?” Amity asks. Hyrule’s smile is a bit less shaky as he smiles. Amity continues to stand next to Hyrule, one hand holding Hyrule’s, and the other attached to the arm wrapped around Hyrule’s leg as they hug him. The camera focuses there for a moment, and on screen a few sparkles fly across the screen. 

“Let’s try this sweet and sour creation, shall we?” Warriors poses. Thom and Wild nod, and each of them break off a piece. They all make sure to get a piece with a bit of sour candy. When Warriors puts it in his mouth, he chews for a moment, contemplating. 

“The sour candy does  _ not _ help with flavor,” Warriors comments after swallowing his bite of cookie. Thom nods, but Wild shrugs. 

“You know I’ll eat pretty much anything. I can say the candy doesn’t particularly… Work as well as you probably thought it would, but it’s an interesting mix!” Wild says. Amity reaches up for a piece of the cookie, looking up at Hyrule as if they’re asking permission. Hyrule nods, and Amity breaks off a piece of the cookie and puts it in their mouth. 

“Yummy!! Sour candy!!” Amity says, continuing to munch happily on their piece of cookie. 

“The texture is… A bit cakey,” Thom comments, and Hyrule’s hopes appear to raise for a moment. 

“But that’s not really what you’d want from a cookie. Maybe try not getting as much air when you cream together the sugar and the butter, or watch how much flour you’re putting in,” Thom continues. Wild nods. 

“I noticed you were just putting everything together in your stand mixer, did you separate your ingredients?” Wild asks. Hyrule gives a slight shake of his head. 

“Maybe… Try that, next time,” Wild advises. Hyrule nods. 

“Alright. Thank you very much, Hyrule, now onto our last competitor!” Warriors says. Hyrule glances down at Amity, who shakes their head and clutches onto his hand tighter. Hyrule gives the six year old a watery smile, and they grin back. Now that is an adorable sight. 

“Alright, Sky, here’s the cookie you were trying to recreate… Let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Sky lifts the glass cover with a slight flourish, moving his hand to indicate the cookie that sits on the plate. 

“Nailed it!” Sky says happily. Warriors’ eyebrows raise above his head. These cookies look a bit off from how they should, and the icing colors are off (the gold looks brown and the tan looks a bit… yellow) but the structure?

“This… Wow,” Warriors says, giving the cookie an interested look. 

“The colors are off, but the structure is good. It looks like it’s supposed to, for the most part,” Wild comments. Thom nods. 

“It’s good, for having had an hour to do. You’ve got to have good time management to do something like this,” Thom says. Sky smiles. 

“I like to think I’m good at managing time,” he says. 

“Well. We should probably eat this,” Warriors says. He glances over at Amity and the camera pans over to Amity refusing to let go of Hyrule’s leg. Their smaller hand is still holding onto Hyrule’s, and he’s laughing quietly at something Amity said. Amity doesn’t look back at their papa when he speaks, they’re focused on the story they’re telling. 

“Alright, let’s munch then!” Wild says, reaching forward and breaking off the moderately-well iced hand at the top of the cookie. He takes a bite as the others snap their own pieces off the cookie. 

“It’s… Tough,” Wild says, looking down at the cookie with a slight disappointment. Warriors and Thom take their own bites of cookie, pondering for a moment. As Thom finishes chewing his bit of cookie, Warriors is still chewing and making a face. 

“How long did you put these in the oven for?” Thom asks. Sky puts a hand on his chin, thinking for a moment. 

“Uh… There wasn’t a specific time on the recipe, so I guesstimated?” Sky replies. Wild facepalms. There’s laughing a bit further down the line, and it sounds a bit like Twilight. The camera only fixates on Sky’s confused face. 

“Is that bad?”

“ _ Yes. _ ”

“Oh.”

The room goes quiet for a few seconds. Thom, Warriors, and Wild all lock eyes. 

“But other than that, it’s a pretty good cookie. Try and… Not guesstimate next time,” Thom advises. Sky nods. Then Warriors claps his hands together. 

“Alright! Us judges have come to a decision! Come on and shuffle on down this way!” he says. Amity looks up at Hyrule as he doesn’t move. 

“I can walk with you Mr. Hyrule! If you want!” Amity says, taking Hyrule’s hand and leading him down to where Sky stood. The camera pans over to Warriors and Thom, who both have slight tears in their eyes. 

“Our baby’s being such a sweetheart,” Warriors says, giving the softest of smiles. Thom nods. 

“They’re our kid, pumpkin. I bet they got it from me,” Thom replies. Warriors gasps and shakes his head. 

“They did  _ not _ get it from you, they heard you call me one of the no-no words last week!” Warriors replies, and Thom places a hand over his heart. Before they can continue their “argument,” Wild clears his throat.

“Are we not going to announce the winner of round one?” Wild asks. Warriors coughs, and Thom straightens his collar, before they all turn towards the three contestants and one six year old. 

“The winner of this round is… Sky!” Thom says cheerfully. Sky’s eyes widen at the declaration, and Legend starts to roll a cart out. Barely in frame, Amity squeezes Hyrule’s hand a bit. 

“And with this round, you get a very special prize… You’ll be the star of any decorating club with this… 263 piece decorating set!” Warriors announces as Legend continues to push the cart. He tosses something to Warriors, which he catches flawlessly behind his back.

“Not only that, but you get the rockin’... Gold chef’s hat!” Warriors continues, pulling out a gold and sparkling chef’s hat from behind his back and walking up to Sky and crowning him with the bedazzled hat. 

“Now Twilight and Hyrule both know who to look out for. Now… Follow us on over to! Door! Number! Two!” Warriors grinned as he started power-walking to the door to the right of the judges’ table emblazoned with a “2” in the same manner as the first door was. The camera follows after him, as the rest of the judges started walking towards the door as well. The contestants followed, and Amity still refused to let go of Hyrule’s hand. 

“Alright! So this next round is called Nail It or Fail It! With this challenge, we’ll be asking you to go above and beyond the past round. As all of you know, there are multiple heroes within recent memory. And within this recent memory, one of those heroes was married. Let’s see how y’all fare at recreating the one, the only… Hero of Time’s wedding cake!” As Warriors finishes speaking, the door opens with a flourish. A four-tiered cake covered in caramel and flowers is revealed as smoke pours out onto the floor. Hyrule and Sky’s jaws drop, but Twilight locks eyes with Warriors. There’s an anger there, and Warriors only grins back. 

“This twelve tiered cake is a masterpiece befitting a hero of the era, with four main tiers made of three layers of cake each, covered with just the right amount of buttercream, and caramel artfully drizzled down the sides. The flowers are made of fondant, and you’ll have to make those yourselves,” Thom explains. Warriors’ shit-eating grin only grows larger. Twilight’s glare grows sharper. 

“But don’t worry, y’all’ll be getting a bit of help in this round. Each of you will be getting a panic button, where one of our two judges will come over and help you for three minutes! And Hyrule, since you had a bit of trouble in the last round, you’re getting something extra,” Warriors says. Amity glances at Warriors curiously as Hyrule tilts his head to the side slightly. 

“You’ll be getting the “Running Wild” button. At any time, you can press it and Wild here will go and bug your opponents for three minutes,” Warriors continues. Wild grins at Twilight, for some unknown reason, and Twilight grimaces, breaking the glaring contest with Warriors. 

“Alright, bakers! You’ve got two hours on the clock! Go! Go, go go! You don’t have all day!” Warriors says rapidly. Twilight and Sky rush off, and Hyrule glances down at Amity for a moment. 

“I’m gonna go sit with my papa now, but you’re gonna make the bestest cake! I love you Mr. Hyrule!” Amity says, before letting go of Hyrule’s hand and running over to sit at the judges’ table. Warriors makes to go call for Legend to grab a chair when they just clamber up into his lap like a little monkey. How cute. 

As the trio of bakers get to work, the camera focuses on the judges as Amity gets settled in their papa’s lap and does a little happy wiggle. Warriors grins down at them and ruffles their hair. 

“Aaah!! Papa, no!!!” Amity protests, giggling all the while. Thom smiles softly at his husband and their youngest. 

“So. Wild, how would you go about making a cake like this?” Thom asks curiously. Wild pauses to think for a moment, and Wind watches him intently. 

“Well, I’d definitely make sure that the cakes were all done right - though I’m not sure if they’ll be able to do all twelve tiers between their two ovens-” Wild is interrupted by Warriors chiming in. 

“Oh, they can, I had Legend test earlier,” Warriors says. Legend peers out from the first set of doors and glares at Warriors for a second before disappearing into the cameraless void. 

“That’s cleared up then. If I can fit all the cakes in the ovens, once they’re baking I’d start making the buttercream icing, caramel, and the fondant decorations. Airspraying the fondant might end up being more effective than coloring the fondant itself, but that comes with its own risks. I’d go the long route, even if it’s more tedious. I’m just hoping that the air isn’t filled with the smells of burning sugar in a bit,” Wild says. Thom nods. With that, the camera pans over to the three contestants. Hyrule is reading over the recipe a bit more, while Sky is grimacing.

“I’m going to need. Multiple stand mixers,” he mutters to himself. Twilight is glaring at the recipe, and glaring over at the stand mixers. 

“I’m going to need  _ how many eggs?? _ ” Hyrule asks confusedly from his station. 

“This is too much cake,” Twilight says in a deadpan. Warriors laughs from up at the judges’ table.

“That’s the point!” he says with a grin on his face. 

“I hate you,” Twilight grumbles, and Warriors’ laughing only grows louder. The contestants continue to work on getting all their ingredients together, and as the stand mixers start to whir, Amity starts to fidget. 

“Oh! Amity!” Wind says, catching the six-year-old’s attention. With a curious glint in their eye only a small child could get, they tilt their head curiously. 

“You wanna hear about the dog I got to see at school today?” Wind asks. Amity sits up ramrod straight and nods vigorously, As Wind starts to weave a tale of the goodest of girls, the camera pans back over to Hyrule, who’s vigorously cracking eggs into separate bowls. He has two stand mixers set up - as does everyone else - and he’s attempting to get his eggs cracked into a separate bowl before he goes and actively starts mixing. An improvement from the last round, at least. Sky, meanwhile, is working on adding his wet ingredients to the dry, while Twilight is just… What is Twilight even doing? He certainly doesn’t know what he’s doing. The camera tilts a bit, before moving back to Hyrule. He looks like he’s humming something to himself. 

“Baking cakes, gonna bake some cakes, yeah!” Hyrule sings quietly to himself as he shimmies slightly in place and the mixers work their magic. There’s a quiet laugh behind the camera - is Legend camera-manning again? Who knows. 

“This is the worst idea you’ve had, Warriors!” Twilight calls from his station. The camera angle changes, and oh, look at that. Twilight is covered in flour. It got all over his hair, now he looks more bleach blond than dirty blond. Funny. 

“Not at all!! It’s the greatest for multiple reasons!” Warriors calls back, laughing as he does. Twilight glowers at him, before going back to angrily sorting through his ingredients. Warriors’ laughter only grows louder. 

In no time at all, the contestants are getting their cakes into the oven in a slightly precarious manner, and Wind has changed from talking about his school day to talking about a new book he’s been reading for one of his classes, about dragons. A timer declares they have around an hour and a half left. 

“Alright, let’s make this caramel,” Hyrule mutters to himself as the camera moves around the room. He reads over the directions and frowns to himself. 

“Heat over the stove? But… You know what, I’ll make the icing,” Hyrule mutters again, moving around to make the buttercream instead. Twilight, in the meantime, is grinning as he stirs a pot over his stovetop. 

“The only thing that I’m confident in making,” Twilight says, stirring a spoon as he glances down at the sugary mixture contained in it. Sky’s reading over his recipe, and nods to himself as he moves to go grab both the ingredients for caramel and buttercream.

“Oh, that’s smart. He’s making both the buttercream and caramel at the same time,” Wild comments. 

“Saving time, but he needs to be careful,” Thom adds, and Wild nods.

“Yeah. If he’s not careful, he could mess up the buttercream by overwhipping it if he doesn’t keep an eye on it, or he could burn the caramel and that would  _ stink _ ,” Wild says. Four nods solemnly from where he sits, and Wild raises an eyebrow. 

“How would you know that?” he asks. Four stares at him for a moment. 

“Shadow wanted to try cooking. He burnt chocolate  _ and _ sugar, it smelled disgusting,” Four says in a deadpan. The camera focuses in on Four’s face, and he stares into the camera disarmingly. 

“I couldn’t get the smell out of the house for two months, Wild.  _ Two months, _ ” Four says. The room is quiet, other than the sound of stand mixers whirring. 

“That sounds stinky!” Amity pipes up, and the camera pans over to Amity’s wrinkled-up face. It’s adorable. But all six year olds are. 

“It was, Amity. So, horribly stinky,” Four says. Amity nods. 

“Hmm hmm hmmmm, making buttercream,” Hyrule hums as the camera changes. The stand mixer is whirring, and he’s slowly keeping an eye on how he’s putting everything in. A notable improvement from the last round. There’s a loud sigh, and the camera pans over to Twilight, who’s lifting his spoon up and letting caramel drip from it. Perfectly golden brown. 

“How’d you do that?” Hyrule calls, looking at the masterpiece from where he’s making his buttercream.

“Just keep an eye on it!” Twilight replies. Hyrule pauses, takes a look down at his buttercream, before nodding and deeming it sufficient. Time to work on the caramel, he guesses. Right as Hyrule starts on his caramel and Twilight starts on the buttercream, there’s a rancid smell that starts to make itself known.

“Oh hell no,” Four says, standing up and starting to walk out. Wind, who he’s sat next to, shakes his head. 

“You’re staying, you’re my ride back home, Warriors can’t take me,” Wind says in a rush. Four looks at him.

“Sky just burnt his caramel I don’t want to smell that,” Four says, right as Amity starts to wrinkle their nose and look up at Warriors with confusion.

“Papa it smells bad!! I don’t like it!!” Amity says. Warriors sniffs, and immediately regrets it if the look on his face is anything to go by. 

“Oh goddesses, we need to get some fans in here. Legend can you  _ please _ get some fans?” Warriors calls. Legend pops out of nowhere, wrinkles his own nose, and runs off to presumably get something to get that smell out of mind. Two seconds later, the sound of the ventilation gets louder, and a fan sound makes itself known, whirring loudly. 

“Thank you Legend!” Warriors calls. There’s no reply, but no one needs it. The acrid smell slowly leaves, right as Sky turns around and grimaces.

“Oh  _ goddesses _ , I burnt my caramel!” Sky says, running over to the pot and immediately turning off the heat and taking the pot off the stove. 

“I’m not going to have time to make more of it, oh no,” Sky mutters as he fills the pot with water and puts it in the sink. This is going to be abysmal. He could always make a little bit and make an extra batch of buttercream and flavor it with the caramel and try that? Sky nods to himself, deciding to try being innovative. 

“Oh, that’s what that smell was!” Hyrule says as he starts moving his caramel off the stove and heads towards the ovens to pull out his cakes. At least he remembered to grease the pans this time! That’s a crucial step, and he remembered it! Hyrule’s so proud of himself. As Twilight finishes up his buttercream and takes a glance at the oven, he rushes over to pull all his cakes out as well. Sky follows soon after, and a timer along the bottom of the screen reads 59:52. 

“One hour left everyone! Oooooone hour!” Warriors calls while Amity messes with his scarf. Hyrule nods as he sets his cakes down one by one and starts assembling his cake. Buttercream between the layers, making sure the cakes are evenly spaced… Would he need cake boards? Hm. 

Twilight, meanwhile, was also putting his cake together, though he wasn’t putting all four mock layers together yet. Each stack of three was set aside as he places each on a cake board and takes dowel rods and put three in each cake. Now he’d know where to place each cake. As he let his cakes sit off to the side, he turns on one of the burners on the lowest heat he could possibly get it and puts the caramel back on it. It needed to be a bit warm if he wanted his plan to work. Now, with that out of the way, it was fondant time. 

And Sky? He was just a disaster. He was leaving another mixer with more buttercream in it running, making more caramel on the stove, and was glancing at the oven anxiously. After a few more anxious seconds, Sky moves the caramel off the hot burner with a nod and dashes over to grab his cakes, almost forgetting to grab an oven mitt in his rush. 

“You doing alright?” Hyrule calls over, giving Sky a curious look. 

“Fantastic!” Sky replies, carrying two cakes and setting them down on the counter, before going back for more. As all the cakes are laid out, Sky starts applying the same technique that Twilight is, and starts putting each mock layer together with cake boards and dowels. 

There’s a triumphant cry from Hyrule’s station, and the camera pans over to see six layers of cake stacked on top of one another. As Hyrule turns to go and grab the next cake board, however, the camera zooms in as the top three layers start to sink.

“ _ Oh no _ ,” Thom whispers from the judges’ table, drawing the rest of the table’s occupants to what’s happening. 

“Oh no indeed,” Wild says quietly. Right as Hyrule turns back around, the top three layers fall into the lower three, smushing the bottom three layers. Hyrule stares for a moment, before his eyes start to water. In a panic, he smacks one of his two buttons and Warriors and Wild lock eyes. 

“ _ Running Wild! _ ” Warriors says, and as Wild vaults over the judges’ table and a timer next to the graphic of the Running Wild button with 3:00 appears on screen, Twilight locks eyes with Warriors. Meanwhile, Amity is wriggling in Warriors’ lap, and manages within a few seconds to wriggle their way out and starts running over to Hyrule. They reach him right as Wild reaches Sky and starts to bug him. 

“Oooooo!! What’re you up to?? That’s a lot of buttercream can I have some I want some!” Wild says. Sky sighs quietly, attempting to ice his cakes. Twilight watches with trepidation, while Amity grabs Hyrule’s hands in their smaller ones. 

“Mr. Hyrule it’s gonna be okay!! It’s gonna be okay!” Amity says, tugging on his hands. Hyrule looks at Amity, eyes watering with unshed tears, and they give one of those smiles that only small children can give. 

“I’ll help you! Just cause your cake col-lap-sed doesn’t mean we can’t make it not col-lap-sed!” Amity continues. Hyrule sniffles and nods. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, before taking Amity’s hand in his and leading them over to his cooking station. They gasp, wide-eyed at all the things Hyrule has set up. Before Amity can say anything, Wild runs across the floor and dashes at Twilight, jumping onto his back.

“Sweet  _ Din _ , Wild!” Twilight says as Wild koalas around him. 

“ _ What’reyoudoingwhat’reyoudoingwhat’reyoudoing!!! _ ” Wild says like an excitable child. The timer at the bottom of the screen declares 1:28 on the Running Wild timer. What’s disarming about Twilight, though, is that he shrugs off Wild being a koala. 

“Making fondant decorations,” Twilight says. If you look closely you can see a slight twitch at his brow, but it’s barely noticeable. 

“Ooooo!! Pretty!!” Wild says, watching over Twilight’s shoulder as he keeps on molding fondant into a shape that doesn’t really look like a flower, but he’s trying his best. Meanwhile, Hyrule is talking to Amity over at his station.

“So we need to make flowers, but I need to figure out how to not make the top two layers fall into the cake,” Hyrule says. Amity blinks, before gasping. 

“Daddy always says he puts… Uh… Cake dow-ells in his cakes!!” Amity says. Hyrule pauses, putting a hand on his chin.

“Cake do- Oh!” Hyrule moves to look for something and whirls back around when he finds what he’s looking for. 

“I should… Put them in the cake to support the cake board  _ oh _ ,” Hyrule says, glancing at his sunken cake. 

“Well. I can’t fix that, it’s beyond saving. But I can make sure that none of the other layers do that,” Hyrule says, sticking cake dowels into the cake at where the edge of the cake board would go, in the middle, and a few extras just in case. 

“Struc-tur-al sup-port is im-por-tant!” Amity says soundly, and Hyrule nods. 

“Alright, so do you want to make some flowers Amity?” Hyrule asks. Amity gasps and nods. 

“Yes!! Pretty flowers!!” Amity says, clapping their hands together a few times. Hyrule smiles at them, and as Amity starts to mess with fondant, Hyrule continues to assemble his cake properly. There’s a loud “aw” from the judges’ table, and the camera pans over to Thom and Warriors both smiling softly. A buzzer goes off somewhere, and Wild hops off Twilight’s back as the “Running Wild” timer disappears from the bottom of the screen. 

“Thank the goddesses,” Twilight mutters as Wild heads back up to the judges’ table. Wild only winks in a childish manner. Twilight rolls his eyes at the antics, as he goes back to working on making fondant flowers. They don’t look the best, but he’s trying. As he starts to work, Warriors and Thom lock eyes.

“Is this allowed, pumpkin?” Thom asks. Warriors shrugs. 

“Hon, it’s my show. And Amity’s our kid, they like Hyrule. Legend, would you mind getting that smaller apron stored away?” Warriors calls. Legend pops out from nowhere, already holding it. He walks over to where Amity and Hyrule are, and hands the smaller apron to Hyrule. 

“For the kid,” he says, and Hyrule nods. 

“Hey Amity, you wanna match?” Hyrule asks. Amity looks up from making some cartoonish looking flowers and grins. Their missing front tooth only makes the grin more endearing. 

“Yes!” they say, and Hyrule drops the apron over their head, tying it quickly in place. Amity oohs and aahs at the apron, and gasps when they see their name embroidered on the upper part. 

“That’s my name!” they say. Hyrule laughs. 

“That it is! Do you want to make more flowers now?” Hyrule replies. Amity nods rapidly, moving back to making more flowers. 

Sky, meanwhile, is rushing to make his fondant decorations. Using some quick thinking, he decides to make all of them white and airbrush them to look like the colors they’re supposed to before he puts them on the cake. Nodding to himself, Sky starts working on his fondant decorations. A timer flashes along the bottom of the screen. Roughly thirty minutes remain, now. 

All the contestants plus one six year old get down to the gritty business of the final half hour, working as rapidly as things will allow. Hyrule finishes assembling his cake in a quick fashion, and starts working with Amity on the fondant decorations, quickly deciding to follow the style that Amity had started with. Plus he probably wouldn’t be able to make the fancy flowers that were supposed to be atop the cake anyways, so making them look a bit more cartoonish works to his advantage. Sky’s pumping out fondant flowers as fast as he can make them - which is pretty sloppily, but there’s a lot of them - and setting them all down so he can airbrush them with basic colors. Twilight, meanwhile, is still making flowers, but he’s paying attention to detail somewhat while still going fast. 

“Is… Is Sky going to airbrush his flowers?” Thom asks, turning towards Wild with a curious eye.

“What’s so bad about that?” Wind asks, looking up from the game he’s playing on his phone curiously. 

“Well, he won’t be able to get the pastel colors he needs, so his flowers will come out looking a lot more vibrant than they’ll need to be,” Wild replies, and Wind nods, even if he doesn’t necessarily understand. 

“Mhmm,” Wind replies, his eyes darting back down to his phone. There’s a very interesting game there, to be sure. Four glances over, raises an eyebrow, and goes back to watching the contestants. 

Time continues to go by, with decorations being made and contestants being watched. Eventually, Warriors takes a glance over at something and gasps. 

“Oh, oh my! Five minutes remaining!” Warriors calls out. He glances around at the different contestants.

“You should be getting those details on your cakes, and getting your cake screens up!” Warriors continues. Twilight pulls up the screen as he starts putting fondant flowers on the individual layers. Hyrule pulls the screen up, before lifting up Amity to place a flower at the tippity top of the cake. Sky, meanwhile, yanks the screen up as he sets the last layer of cake on the top, before going back to furiously airbrushing his fondant decorations. 

“Sky’s going to  _ town _ ,” Four comments, laughing as he does so. Warriors nods.

“That he is!” he replies, right as Sky releases the trigger on the airbrush. He doesn’t hazard a glance down at his hands as he grabs a second bowl of buttercream colored caramel (and flavored with it too) and starts to put it all over the cake as to mimic caramel falling. 

All the contestants are in a rush as the final minutes slowly start to wrap up, and as the timer on-screen reappears with seconds left on the clock, the bakers are all scrambling to get their last few details. Twilight is placing something on the top of his cake, Hyrule’s fiddling with something, and Sky’s haphazardly placing things on the cake. Amity’s also messing with something. Making something out of fondant? Hm. Wonder what it could be? 

The countdown clock flashes red as the final seconds start, and Warriors opens his mouth as the timer flashes. 

“Three! Two! One! And you’re done!” Warriors calls, and each of the contestants lift their hands away from their cakes. Amity looks up at their papa, pouting. 

“But Papa! I was making something for Mr. Hyrule! Not the cake!” Amity pouts, and Hyrule gives them a curious look. Amity lifts up a fondant heart. A lopsided one, but one nonetheless. 

“I made you a heart because I love you!” Amity says in that six year old way. Hyrule tears up as Amity hands it to him, and the camera pans over to the judges’ table, where there’re soft smiles all around. 

“Alright, now that my child has stopped being an adorable bean… Bakers! Wheel us your creations!” Warriors says, as the three judges step down from the judges’ table. Wind’s still engrossed in whatever game he’s playing, while Four seems content to watch from a distance. Each cake is wheeled over, and Amity skips behind Hyrule as he moves his own cake. 

“Alright, before we get to judging the cakes on appearance and taste, we have two  _ planned _ special guests for tonight!” Warriors says as he looks at Twilight and grins wolfishly. Twilight tilts his head a bit, before narrowing his eyes in a glare. 

“As everyone will know, these cakes were recreations of the Hero of Time’s cake from his wedding. We had the wonderful fortune of being able to get both the Hero of Time himself and his wife Malon to come on the show today! Might I introduce Link Lon Lon and his wife, Malon Lon Lon?” Warriors says. Twilight’s glare only grows more intense as two people walk onto the set, their hands entwined with one another’s. 

“It’s a pleasure to be here, really, Warriors,” the figure on the left says. They have a noticeable accent, one that’s very calming. 

“It’s not a problem, Mrs-” Warriors cuts himself off as the two people come into view. A tall blond man with a scar over one eye, and a shorter redheaded woman. The woman puts the hand not holding the man’s on her hip, and she gives Warriors a look.

“Now what have I told you about calling me Mrs. Lon Lon, Warriors?” the woman says. Warriors looks admonished for a moment, before nodding.

“Right, sorry Malon,” Warriors says. Malon sighs quietly, and looks up at the man. 

“Well, Link?” Malon asks, and the blond man blinks, before nodding slightly. 

“Like my wife said, it really is a pleasure,” Link says. A banner unfurls on screen under the two standing together, reading, “Link (Time) and Malon Lon Lon, Couple Goals.” As it does this, Malon looks to her left and perks up.

“Oh, Link, honey! Warriors, you didn’t mention that Link was going to be on the show!” Malon says. Twilight goes bright red, and smiles a bit at his mom. Warriors grins.

“Well, I thought it’d be a nice surprise,” Warriors replies. Malon moves to speak, when Time interrupts.

“Both of our sons are here, apparently,” Time says, and that draws everyone’s attention. Wild grins, face bright red.

“Hi mom, hi dad,” he says quietly, and Malon perks up. She takes a few quick steps towards Wild and gives him a big hug, before turning towards Warriors as she speaks. 

“Link, honey! I didn’t know you were on this show! Warriors, you didn’t tell us both of our sons were going to be on this show!” Malon says, slightly admonishing.

“I… Didn’t know Wild was your kid?” Warriors replies. Time raises an eyebrow curiously. 

“You’ve known the pup here since you were both in college and you didn’t know that he had an adopted younger brother?” Time asks. Warriors goes red, and tucks his lower face into his scarf as the tips of his ears turn bright red as well. 

“N...No?” Warriors says, voice muffled by his scarf. Before anyone else can say anything, Thom reaches over and leans down to give Warriors a kiss on the cheek. 

“It’s fine hon. Wild didn’t know you were married or that you had kids, so it should be even,” Thom replies, propping his cheek on Warriors’ head. Malon perks up at that.

“ _ Link _ , you didn’t know Warriors here had a husband  _ or _ kids? Now shame on you!” Malon says as she wags a finger in his direction. Before anyone else can speak, though, there’s a gasp.

“Auntie Malon!” Amity cries as they run at Malon and hug her legs. Malon smiles softly and looks down.

“Oh, look at that. My favorite child,” Malon says. Both Twilight and Wild gasp, and Wild puts a hand on his chest offendedly. 

“ _ Mom _ , I thought you loved me!” Wild says accusingly. Malon opens her mouth to speak, but Amity looks up at Wild and blows a raspberry, before hugging Malon a little bit tighter.

“I love you, Auntie Malon! But I gotta go! I gotta stand with Mr. Hyrule, I helped him with his cake!” Amity says, before running back over to Hyrule and grabbing his hand again. Malon coos at the sight, before looking up at Time.

“Goodness, I remember the times that both our sons were like that,” she says. Time inclines his head slightly, nodding a bit.

“Mmm, it’s been a while,” Time replies. It goes quiet for a second, before Warriors clears his throat pointedly. 

“Mm, yes. I did invite the two of you on for a reason,” Warriors says. Malon tilts her head slightly, curious. 

“As I mentioned when I called last week, on the show here, people try to recreate these amazing sweet treats, and since the second challenge was yours and Time’s wedding cake, I thought I would call the two of you in,” Warriors explains. Malon and Time both nod, and Warriors turns to the three competitors and six year old. 

“So you have five judges for this round. The three you had last round, plus Time and Malon here. Now… Twilight, could you show us your cake?” Warriors asks. Twilight locks eyes with Warriors and glares. For a moment, it seems like Twilight won’t do it, but he sighs and presses the button to unveil his cake.

“Nailed it,” Twilight says, voice slightly more exuberant than the last round’s reveal, but not by much. 

“Oh my,” Malon says, giving the cake a once over. The cake looks roughly like how it should, but the fondant decor… Does not look like flowers. There’s too much buttercream, and the only redeeming feature is probably the caramel. 

“That’s… Definitely a cake,” Warriors says, covering his mouth as to not show off the full grin he has. That would just be rude. 

“It looks off, son,” Time says, not trying to soften the blow whatsoever.

“Well I did only have two hours to make it, so,” Twilight replies almost automatically.

“Only two hours?” Malon asks, turning towards Warriors with a bit of concern.

“The intent isn’t a perfect recreation, just the best they can do with what they have,” Thom says, and Malon nods, turning back around.

“Well, for two hours, it looks good. You’ve got the basic structure of the cake, all the elements are there, there’s just a bit too few fondant decorations,” Wild says. Thom nods. 

“And we’ll get to see how it tastes in a bit,” Warriors adds, before clapping his hands together.

“Alright! Onto the next cake!” Warriors says, making his way to Hyrule and Amity. The others trail after him and come to a stop scattered around him. 

“Okay, Hyrule. Let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Hyrule pauses, and Amity looks up at him from where they stand next to him holding his hand. 

“We can both hit the button!” Amity says, reaching up with their conjoined hands. Hyrule nods, and Amity smacks their hands onto the button that brings down the screen.

“Nailed it!” Hyrule says, sounding extremely anxious.

“Nailed it!” Amity choruses after him, sounding a lot more excited. They’re bouncing on the balls of their feet. 

“Oh, honey, what happened?” Malon asks, looking at the collapsed layer of cake. The cake itself is about a tier shorter than it should be, and the fondant decorations look a lot more cartoonish than realistic, but the caramel looks good at least! 

“Forgot to support the second layer of cake and it crushed the first,” Hyrule says quietly.

“It’s fine, Mr. Hyrule! It’s gonna taste good!” Amity says, tugging on his hand slightly. 

“Yeah. It should, I paid more attention to what I was doing,” Hyrule replies. 

“You did your best in the time you had, and you recovered from the cake collapse admirably,” Thom says, giving Hyrule a reassuring smile. Hyrule smiles shakily back. 

“I agree. And besides, a cake’s nothing if it doesn’t taste good!” Warriors adds. Wild and Time both nod quietly. 

“Absolutely. Sometimes the best things don’t look the prettiest,” Malon says. Hyrule’s shaky smile gets watery, and Amity looks up at Hyrule with concern on their face.

“Mr. Hyrule! Don’t cry!! It’ll be okay!!” Amity says, tugging on his hand again. Hyrule sniffs a few times.

“They’re kind of happy tears,” Hyrule replies, his smile wobbling a bit. Amity pauses, before grinning up at him. Their missing tooth just. Makes that grin even more adorable. What a small child. How cute. 

“Adorable children aside, let’s move on! To the last cake!” Warriors says, barely managing to tear himself away from his adorable child. Thom nods, as does Wild. The five of them make their way to Sky, who smiles a bit.

“Alright, Sky! Why don’t you show us what you did!” Warriors says enthusiastically. And Sky, just as enthusiastically, presses the button that reveals his cake and moves his hands to show off.

“Nailed it!” he says, his cake on display.

“Is that. Is that buttercream instead of caramel?” Wild immediately asks. Sky’s smile, surprisingly, doesn’t waver at all. 

“Well, I made do with what I could, cause I burnt my caramel, so I tried my hand at making caramel-flavored buttercream. Not sure how it turned out, though,” Sky says, gesturing towards the caramel buttercream. Overall, the cake doesn’t look too bad. The buttercream on buttercream doesn’t look… The best, but it’s about as good as one can get without actual caramel. 

“I saw you airbrushed your fondant decorations,” Thom comments. Sky nods.

“I thought it would save time!” Sky replies cheerfully. Thom nods.

“Well, the disadvantage is sharper colors than you’d normally have. It saves time, but you lose the right color,” Thom continues. Sky nods once, and Warriors claps his hands together. While they were walking from cake to cake, two more chairs appeared at the judges’ table, almost as if it were magic.

“Alright, bakers, bring us the best slice of your cake and we! Will! Taste it!” Warriors says, before leading the five judges up to the table. Twilight, Hyrule, and Sky all cut pieces of their cakes - although each of them cuts from different places, with Twilight favoring a middle layer, Hyrule favoring the top, and Sky going directly for the bottom layer - and take them up to the judges. 

“Well, Twilight. Your cake is first,” Warriors says. The cake starts over with Time, who takes a bit with his fork and passes it on to Malon, who repeats the process and passes the slice of cake down the table. 

“The buttercream is good, though the caramel is much better. Did you put some in between the layers of the cake?” Wild asks curiously. Twilight nods once.

“Good choice!” Wild says. 

“The cake is fluffy, the buttercream is good, even if there’s a bit too much for my tastes,” Thom says. 

“I have to say that I’m a bit biased, but nothing will beat the cake we had the day we got married,” Time says, giving Malon a soft smile. She smiles back, leaning into his side. Wild sticks his tongue out childishly, and Twilight rolls his eyes at Wild’s antics. 

“It’s good! Never knew you could actually bake, only that you made a mad caramel dip for parties,” Warriors says. Twilight shrugs. 

“If I have a recipe in front of me I can manage pretty well. Plus I picked up a lot of stuff from osmosis from third wheeling you and Thom when Thom would talk about baking, so,” Twilight replies. Malon laughs at that, which gets Wild laughing, and eventually the studio is filled with laughter. As the laughs die down, Warriors claps his hands together again.

“Alright, alright! Hyrule, your cake is next!” Warriors says. It goes through the same process that Twilight’s cake went through with the grab a bite and pass strategy. 

“This is moist cake, though the buttercream is a bit  _ too _ buttery, and the caramel isn’t… Quite at the right consistency. Have you ever made caramel before?” Thom asks. Hyrule shakes his head once. 

“I, for one, love it. You took what you had and you did your best, and that’s admirable,” Malon says. Time gives a silent nod from next to her. 

“I’d try adding a bit more sugar or vanilla next time you try and make icing, the buttery taste won’t be as prevalent,” Thom advises. Hyrule nods. 

“The cake turned out really well. I liked it a lot, although there are a few things I’d recommend you try with mixing ingredients together,” Wild says. Hyrule nods again, and Warriors sets his fork down satisfied.

“I liked this cake, it was light. The buttercream, not as much. There’s improvement to be had, and I believe you’ll get better with time,” Warriors says. Hyrule nods for a third time, and feels another tug at his hand. Amity. They grin up at him, and Hyrule smiles back down. 

“And now, Sky’s cake. Let’s taste it!” Warriors says, and Sky’s cake undergoes the same process that the last two have undergone. 

“There’s… A bit too much buttercream for me, here,” Warriors says. 

“I can agree, but your ingenuity in trying to keep all the elements you needed while not having all the elements is admirable,” Thom adds. 

“The cake is light and airy as well. Good contrast to the buttercream. Well. The buttercream’s pretty lumpy, what happened?” Wild asks. Sky glances down at his shoes for a moment.

“Well… I panicked when I burnt the caramel,” Sky mutters, looking back up. 

“But I still did the best I could,” Sky continues, smiling slightly. 

“That’s the spirit, honey. You did the best you could with the time you had, and that’s good,” Malon says. 

For a moment, the room is quiet. Warriors glances up and down the line, meeting eyes with each of the judges. They all nod, and Warriors gives Thom a nod. 

“Alright, so. All of your cakes were good, but there was one that was better than the rest. Thom, you ready to make it rain, hon?” Warriors turns to his husband, a glint in his eye. There’s a matching one in Thom’s. 

“I’ve always wanted to do this, pumpkin,” Thom says seriously, lifting up a bedazzled “gun” of some sorts. There’s a small slit on the end, is it for… Money?

“Papa, how’s daddy gonna make it rain? We’re inside!” Amity says, tilting their head to the side curiously. Warriors laughs quietly at Amity. 

“You’ll see sweetheart,” Warriors says, before looking at each of the three contestants. 

“The winner of this round not only gets ten thousand rupees, but gets to take home the soon-to-be-collectible Nailed It trophy, which is… Legend? Where’s the trophy?” Warriors asks, looking around. From the void where cameras don’t reside appears Legend, his hat slightly askew as he passes Warriors the trophy and walks off, ignoring literally everyone except Hyrule, who he nods at when Hyrule gives him a wave. 

“Alright then! The winner of Nailed It is… Sky!” Warriors says. As soon as Warriors finishes his sentence, Thom pulls the trigger on the “gun” and rupee notes start flying. Sky gasps and grins. 

“Congratulations!!” Warriors says, as everyone at the judges’ table gets up from the table and walks around. Warriors passes off the trophy to Sky as Twilight, Hyrule, and Amity walk up. Amity reaches over to tug on Warriors hand. 

“Papa, I want up!” Amity says. Warriors smiles at them, before obliging and picking them up. 

“Thank you so much for watching this episode of Nailed It! The Linkpocalypse, that’s for sure,” Warriors grins as the rest of the group clusters around him. Twilight squeezes himself in on one side next to Warriors, with Thom on the other side. Wild’s standing behind Twilight, and Sky’s next to Wild who’s next to Hyrule. Four and Wind are both in front of Warriors, while Time and Malon are in the back. It makes for an almost perfect group picture. 

* * *

The laptop snapped shut with a clicking noise. The fan whirring in the room continued to make noise as the chair previously occupied by someone made a scooting noise on the hardwood floor. As feet pad across the room, someone hums an unfamiliar song quietly.

“That was… Odd,” an unfamiliar voice says, moving to grab something hanging nearby. 

“Maybe the next episode’ll be different,” they continued, moving towards the door as they slip on a pair of shoes. 

“For now, let’s go chow,” they said, leaving the laptop and source of the show behind. There’ll be more time to watch it later.

**Author's Note:**

> and that was _that_ clusterfuck! 
> 
> check out my [tumblr](http://nerdiests.tumblr.com) if you wanna see more wacky shenanigans like this!!


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